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The Sacred Night/La Nuit Sacrée
Tahar Ben Jelloun
(First published 1987)
Just when I thought that I was so free of my past that I no longer even remembered people’s faces, my five remaining sisters – one of the seven was seriously ill, perhaps even dead, and another lived abroad – paraded by in a procession even more grotesque that it was ridiculous. Whether this was a vision, a nightmare, a hallucination, or a reality I cannot say. I remember the details clearly, but I cannot seem to locate the time or place.
They were all dressed the same: white shirts, black ties and jellabas, hoods over their heads. They had moustaches drawn in black pencil, and they wore sunglasses. They introduced themselves, one at a time. They each carried plastic bags. Everything seemed identical and carefully rehearsed. The tallest came first, staring at me with bulging eyes. She put the bag on the table and ordered me to open it: inside was a dead rat. I screamed, but my voice made no sound. She held a straight razor in the other hand, ready to slash a face or a throat. I stood pressed against the cold wall, submissive, unable to escape their torture.
The next one, a butcher’s knife in her right hand, put the bag down in front of me and gestured to me to open it. Inside was a small box containing a reddish scorpion, live and ready to sting.
The third waved a pair of scissors and held out the bag. It was empty. The moment I opened it she pressed my head against the wall and started to cut my hair. She held her knee against my belly. It hurt. The others laughed and said: "That’ll teach you, liar, thief. You took everything from us, you bitch, you murderous bitch."
The fourth – very small, perhaps a dwarf – jumped on me and bit my neck. Blood flowed. I tried to fight back, but the others held me. The dwarf collected the blood in a jar and put it in the plastic bag. "That and the hair will do the trick," she said.
The last one – apparently the youngest – put down her sack between my legs, came toward me with a desolate look, leaned into my arms and whispered in my ear: "I love you. I don’t want them to hurt you. And look, I’m empty-handed. I’m not bad." Then she hit me in the forehead and left with a laugh. So hard was the blow that I almost fainted, but then I felt something brush my legs. This last sister turned out to be the worst. There was a viper in the bag she had left so casually at my feet. I jumped onto the table and howled. By the time I realised where I was, they were all gone. On the ground were a few tufts of hair, drops of blood, and small piles of ash.
I was in tears, deeply shaken. Evil had swooped down on me like the winds of a bird of prey. That story happened to me, though I don’t know where or when. Was it in prison, or while my father lay dying? I lived it and relived it in a kind of relentless plague of murky images risen from the darkness. They all had to do with mourning, with a widow despoiled, and with vengeance.
Perhaps it was a nightmare that preceded or followed the punitive expedition of which I was the victim.
One day, as I was deep in darkness in search of the Consul’s silhouette, a strong and ugly guard came and took me from my cell. She tore the blindfold from my eyes and made me follow her.
"You have a visitor, and it’s not the one you think."
Instead of taking me to the visiting room, she brought me to a cellar, probably a place used for interrogation and torture. She took me to a grey, damp room with a table, a stool, and a lamp.
She left me alone for a few minutes in that room without the tiniest opening for air. Several coats of dark grey paint hid traces of blood on the wall. The door opened and five women filed in, as if in a play, all dressed identically: grey jellabas, white scarves concealing hair and foreheads, gloves, pale faces devoid of all makeup. They were all ugly, and exuded unease. I realised who they were: a sect of Muslim sisters, brutal and fanatical. They gathered around me. I opened my eyes wide and recognised my own sisters. The guard was standing there. They had paid for her complicity and silence. They had come to execute a definite plan, to hurt me, perhaps disfigure me, or simply to threaten and frighten me. The oldest soon explained the intentions of this demented group.
"We have come, five fingers of one hand, to put an end to a situation of usurpation and theft. you were never our brother and you will never be our sister. We have expelled you from the family in the presence of men of religion and witnesses of good faith and high virtue. Now listen to me: you made us believe that you were a statue, a monument radiating light, bringing honour and pride to the house, whereas in fact you were only a hole wrapped in a scrawny body, a hole just like mine and your six ex-sisters’. But you plugged up your hole with wax; you tricked and humiliated us. Just like Father, you held us in contempt. Haughty and arrogant, you ignored us. We would have taken care of you if we could, you last little sister. We would have simply slaughtered you. But God provides. Whoever departs from His path is brought to kneel on a sheet of iron reddened by fire. Now order must be restored. You will not escape. You will pay. There will be no mercy, no respite. Our father lost his reason; our mother, poor woman, fell into the wells of silence; and you took advantage of the calamity, packed your bags and took everything. You left us penniless, in dire poverty, in that ruined old house all mouldy, with no more room for life. You ransacked the house and carried off the inheritance. You are in prison now because you deserve it. You ruined the whole family. Now you have to pay. Remember, you are nothing but a hole between two scrawny legs. We are going to plug up that hole forever. You’re going to have a circumcision. Not fake this time, but real. Not a cut finger. No, we’re going to cut off that little thing that sticks out, and muzzle that hole with a needle and thread. We’re going to get rid of that sex you hid. Life will be simpler. No more desire. No more pleasure. You’ll become a thing, a vegetable that will drool until you die. You can start praying. You can shout. No one will hear. Since your betrayal we have discovered the virtues of our beloved religion. Justice has become our passion, truth our ideal and obsession, Islam our guide. We render to life that which belongs to it. And we prefer to act in love and family discretion. Now, in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, Just and All-Powerful, we open our little case."
As she spoke, two of her companions tied my hands to the icy table. They tore off my saroual and lifted my legs. The guard, who knew the place well, showed them two hooks in the ceiling and brought them some rope. My legs were held apart, tied on each side. The oldest stuffed a damp rag into my mouth. She put a hand on my belly and crushed the lips of my vagina with her fingers until what they called "the little thing" came out. They sprinkled it with something, took a razor blade from the metal box, soaked it in alcohol, and cut off my clitoris. I fainted, screaming inside.
Excruciating pain woke me in the middle of the night. I was in my cell, my saroual soaked with blood. My sex was sewn up. I knocked on the door to call for help. No one came. I waited until morning and begged one of the guards to take me to the infirmary. I gave her money. The nurse, probably in collusion with the guard-torturer, gave me some ointment and had me sign a paper acknowledging that I had mutilated myself. The signature was the price for the ointment. I realised then that everyone had been corrupted by my sisters. The medicine eased the pain.
I was lost and bewildered for more than a month, mad, delirious at night, feverish, on the brink of the abyss. The Consul had come to see me twice, but I could not bring myself to speak to him. I hadn’t the strength to tell him what had happened. Yet I was haunted by the idea of revenge. I thought of several plans, but shame for myself and disgust with that family brought me back to my crippled and ruined state.
After his second visit, I was able to write a few words and send them to him through a prisoner who had shown me some sympathy. This is what I wrote:
Lost track of you. Am in darkness and no longer see you. Sick. Sick. My body wounded. You are my only light. Thank you.
